Corporate governance and shareholder advisory consultancy PIRC has accused the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of not adhering to the law and failing to operate wholly independently from the accounting profession, and claims the regulator is ‘unsupportable’ in its current form

Johnston Carmichael, Scotland’s largest independent firm, has reported growth of 3% in the year ending May 2016, breaking the £40m revenue barrier for the first time

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has made clear it is holding to its view that Companies Act legislation does not require companies to publish detailed information on dividend payments in order to provide ‘true and fair’ accounts under IFRS, in response to a challenge from the House of Lords economic affairs committee

Rules to force companies with more than 250 employees to publish information on their gender pay gap are set to come into effect in April, although large limited liability partnerships will be excluded

Deloitte’s consultancy arm has agreed to not bid for government contracts for half a year following an argument with Prime Minister, Theresa May, over a leaked Brexit memo in November 2016

This year HMRC has paid £460,000 to individuals that have provided information to the tax authority on tax evaders, according to law firm RPC

Thomas MacLennan, Alexander Fraser and Jason Baker of FRP Advisory have been appointed as joint administrators of publisher Team Rock Ltd, which has collapsed after experiencing long-term financial difficulties, with the loss of 73 jobs, despite a £5m cash input from private equity in 2015

The Charity Commission says poor governance lay behind the majority of cases it identified for compliance and investigatory work in 2016, including high profile cases regarding fundraising and financial abuse, and says the role of the board of charity trustees is not an ‘optional extra’ in a charity but an essential precondition for good management

Over half of European businesses view Brexit as a threat, compared to 39% who see it as an opportunity, while 41% think the UK’s exit from the EU means it is now a less attractive investment destination according to a poll conducted for RSM

Ahead of the government’s expected green paper on defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, the work and pensions select committee is calling for the introduction of a ‘nuclear deterrent’ in the form of heavy fines to prevent companies from running up large pension deficits

Travellers departing Scottish airports will be able to benefit from half price air passenger duty from 2018 when the Scottish government is set to replace the UK-wide air passenger duty scheme with its own airline ticket tax called air departure tax

Treasury are planning to create a single advice body to align pensions guidance, money guidance and debt advice which will in turn replace the Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and the Department for Work and Pension’s ‘Pension Wise’, in a bid to deliver more targeted support for consumers and generate efficiencies